


Corporal Phantoms

by chattering_tchotchke



Series: Oxymorons [2]
Category: Kingdom Hearts
Genre: Angst, Gen, Kingdom Hearts III Speculation, Self-Doubt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-16
Updated: 2018-12-16
Packaged: 2019-09-20 00:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17012136
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chattering_tchotchke/pseuds/chattering_tchotchke
Summary: The Realm of Darkness is filled with illusions meant to trick the mind at every turn.  Nothing is real, nothing is solid, and nothing is truly there.  Save those who are.





	Corporal Phantoms

**Author's Note:**

> This most likely will not be canon compliant, I just needed to get it out before the trailer drops. In about 3 1/2 hours, we will find out whether or not I am right. Hope I’m not.  
> Edit: okay, so it turns out that the trailer didn’t show really anything on Aqua

The shadows of her friends had only ever come when she was at her weakest. Ven lying in a coffin, looking for all the world like he was dead, or sleeping on his feet and giving no response to her pleas for him to wake up. Terra smiling and fading as she grasped at his hand, or choking a white-haired reflection of himself as he begged for her to stay away. But besides those times, the two usually came and faded before she could get close enough to them.

  
Figures in long hooded black coats ran across her vision in flashes, multiplying when she turned away and vanishing when she looked.

  
_I thought I saw you in one of those coats, Terra, but I couldn’t see you very clearly, and it didn’t really look like you. Where are you now, what are you doing in the Realm of Light? Do you still remember me and Ven?_

  
And her reflection came and went as it pleased, pulling and dragging her into mirrors as darkness grew around them both. Taunting and mocking and preying on all her fears and doubts. But it was right, in any case. How could she be worthy as a Keyblade Master when she had failed so miserably to protect her friends and the light?

  
Aqua still hated it. When it came, it would stay for days on end, its voice echoing through caves and ringing through her ears incessantly. One day—if there were such things as days in this place—she shattered every mirror she came across in a panic, trying to drive it away from her. It stayed away for a while after that.

  
There were fears to be had when it came, and fears to be had when it was gone—which was somehow more and more often in recent times. In its absence, Aqua found herself reflecting on past events. What had happened to them all? Why had Master Xehanort wanted so badly for Terra to fall to Darkness? Why had Terra said that Xehanort was a part of him? Why had the old master wanted Ven and and the other boy— _Vanitas_ , her mind supplied after that blank space had wandered through—to make a χ-blade? Why had anything happened at all?

  
But everything she could and couldn’t remember was covered in a thick layer of fuzzy vagueness, and only Aqua was left. Left to wonder whether or not anything was even real. Maybe it wasn’t. Maybe she had wandered here for all her life. Maybe her fevered mind had made all those memories in an effort to give her some knowledge of happiness that she had lost anyway.

_Or maybe not, and this darkness is playing tricks on me. Maybe I have to fight to try to get out of here. There’s hope, I know it. I just have to look. But won’t somebody come to be with me?_

  
Some days, only the memory of a small, high voice was the reminder of another realm, one of light and love and laughter. Or an almost deep, rumbling sound Aqua couldn’t place, for all that she racked her brain, to a person or something else.

  
And the lingering shadows only ever made it worse. Terra wandered across her path again and again, but always turned away and disappeared if she came towards him. She could never see his face; he wouldn’t let her get that close. Ven ran around her, faster than the wind in this realm, behind rocks and gnarled trees until her legs ached from trying to catch up with him.

  
_Why were you here, you were supposed to be asleep, or had I truly betrayed you that time? Did he take you away, he must have; I told him. Your heart went somewhere, didn’t it, and perhaps it was thrown down here like mine._

  
They never spoke to her. That was the worst part. If they, either of them, could have said even one word, it would be enough. They couldn’t, or didn’t, and silence became an unwelcome friend.

  
_The man with silver hair and golden eyes is only another phantom. Only another one of the black-coated figures I’ve imagined. Don’t look, don’t look, and he won’t come closer, the Heartless behind him won’t come closer, I want a guardian here, I’m so tired, I want a guardian to come for me and be with me a guardian to come guardian to come, Guardian—_

  
She wanted so badly to believe in the words from her friend on the beach. That somewhere, in another realm, a boy was fighting to protect the light. But the days wore on her mind, making that hope seem less realistic, less applicable to her.

  
Had Mickey been able to save the other boy? Aqua had met him once before, she knew, on a beach lit by sunset. His name bobbed in the back of her head, somewhere too far away for her to swim out to it.

  
_—Keyblade, where is the Master’s Keyblade did I lose it on the beach why what is happening to me, he trusted me with it and now I’ve gone and lost it I’ve lost it I’ve lost failure of a Master failure of a friend failure of a Master friend it has been far too long friend all who enter lost to oblivion oblivion none Aqua except you except—_

  
He knew she was here, why hadn’t he come for her again? He’d left her on her own, with no way to get out. Though, perhaps he couldn’t even manage to get out at all. If she, a Keyblade Master, couldn’t leave this realm, how could he? But he must be stronger, he must, he has to be; she was only weak, weak, weak—

  
But were those thoughts her own, or were they her reflection’s? That phantom always talked _to_ her, and never like they were one and the same.

The darkness had not yet taken her. For all her wanderings in this place, she had stayed herself, and not become some twisted reflection.  But she was so utterly alone.  There was no one here, except—

  
_—he’s looking at me, he’s looking at me he’s following me with his Heartless he’s coming he’s close too close and the Heartless he’s heartless I’m cold I’m tired I’m lonely please somebody please stay—_

  
Her phantom from the mirrors was corporal, yes, but every other one was not. The man—men?—with the cruel golden eyes could not hurt her if her mind had simply made them up. She would be safe, as safe as she could be, if she even could be safe here.

  
_—just a touch and they’ll be gone where have they gone now why do they disappear like this from me when I turn away they’re below my ledge—but I know they were behind me on my ledge, how how how—_

  
It should have been so simple. She couldn’t have known that in such a short time they would be coming to save her. In that moment, she couldn’t have known the crushing unfairness of being so close to rescue, only to have such a chance snatched away before she even knew of it.

  
_—the air’s so cold there wasn’t wind a second ago did I really try to kick it away maybe she’s right maybe I am going mad I am so very tired sleepy Ven you hopeless sleepyhead—_

  
Aqua’s vision was filling with black even before the Guardian swung her into the cliff face and let her slide limply down.  The man in the black coat smiled when she didn’t make any motion towards getting to her feet, or even any motion at all.  All according to plan.

  
In her last coherent moments, she only had one, horrified, fearful thought running through her head.

  
_He wasn’t a phantom._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading this, and please me know what you think in the comments!


End file.
